Beck Water

The players get less compensation for playoffs than you might think. For the division round, each player on the Bills will get $46,500. Vet minimum for a 7 year vet would be $64,700 per game, so it's not even vet minimum. And of course, if he's on the practice squad and not elevated that's a max of $20,600. Spotrac puts Haack's career earnings at $7.3M. He might have what Klein called "the itch" to join a team in the playoffs, but I'm kind of thinking the paycheck per se might not be the strongest motivation to cancel whatever plans he and his family have made and fly into the lake effect snow. PS if you're let go from an employer and you say "no thank you" if they try to hire you back, is it always spite IYO?

"Not that there's anything wrong with that"(tm)

This is where I am. Jebus, that Injury Bug has just killed us. I actually feel fairly confident in McDermott's ability to create a defensive game plan that will make good use of the bodies he has. But so many guys went down, we're not playing backups, we're playing backups backups. McDermott sounded pretty confident that they had a plan to bring guys into the facility for practice, I hope he's right, because when you can't practice, you have to go with the status quo and our status quo would feature plugging backups backups into roles that don't best suit them (not to mention, it's hard to rehab if you can't get to the facility and work with the trainers) I think it's a positive that we signed Haack. Glad he was willing to come in, despite getting cut a couple years back.

Yeah, if you read the follows on that tweet, the guy who compiled it states that's his point - those are all jukes, and Allen does them regularly on his runs. "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever" tm If we replaced Josh Allen with an RB and promoted that as a compilation of fine runs, no one would be talking about fake slides. It would be "man, he looks a little awkward but he sure can juke 'em"

A couple things here. I feel sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but the Bills plan to replace Milano seems to have been to use Dodson on possible run downs (about 65-85% of the snaps) and replace him on obvious passing downs by bringing Poyer into the box as a sort of "dime" back, and backfilling at safety, usually with Rapp. What we don't know, is if even a healthy and two-armed Dodson can play MLB capably for the Bills, let alone with one arm supported by a sling and maybe not able to lift it to tackle. That's been Terrell Bernard, then Klein moved over and played very well for him. In 2020, when the Chiefs beat us at home, Allen's L arm was in a sling and it affected his throwing motion. We were also trying to replace Milano in "next man up" fashion by plugging in AJ Klein. Eventually, Klein played admirably in relief of Milano, but Frazier talked about how Milano-Edmunds-Johnson were interconnected and they had to re-distribute coverage responsibilities with Milano out. It took them a couple of games to work it out. I *think* that McDermott is less conservative and more willing to re-work the defense on a game-by-game basis for injuries than Frazier was, but I do think McDermott sometimes gives injured players too much "benefit of the doubt" in whether they're able to play or not, when they really want to and say they're good. Thus we get Milano allowed to play against the Jets and NWE in 2020 when he was unable to lift his arm to tackle with his torn pec and brace; Cody Ford allowed to play when he couldn't lift his arm to punch against the Titans etc etc. We especially need realistic assessments of capability from the trainers this week, because it's a playoff game and everyone is going to want to be out there. That's hopeful, actually.

Your opinion is duly noted. A logical person might point out a few things - starting with the fact that I went to the entymological root of the word fan and common definitions of it, then moving on to the point that I did not say that was MY definition - only that one really can't call something faulty logic when it's based on a commonly understood meaning of a word - and in fact I make clear that I consider the admittedly negative Newcam2012 a fan I really don't want to interfere a bit with your froth of righteous indignation, though. Did you have to work yourself up to that, or did it come naturally, like a fine poop? Has this been building up for a while? Did you feel better afterwards? A sense of release? No, never mind, I don't want to know. Yeah, I'm gatekeeping fandom. Sue me. Someone who's negative and admits it, like @newcam2012, can be a fan to me. Someone like Filthy Beast who is unrelentingly negative and rooting for other teams to win to our detriment is not a Bills fan. Neither is he objective or credible. And if you find that condescending and disrespectful nonsense, I 100% can live with that. In fact, it really won't bother me a bit, that's how comfortable I am with that judgement. Feel free to read my posts or ignore them, as best suits you - but I really think frothing on about HOW I FEEL and MY MOTIVATIONS TO POST, both of which you know nothing about, says way more about you than about me. That's not one I need my hypothetical logical fallacy cheatsheet to decode - that's called an "Ad Hominem", where a person personally attacks the arguer, rather than the argument. Cheers!

That's credibility I guess - of a sort

I'm guessing to practice squad, in place of Fournette. It makes sense. Haack had a year of experience holding for Bass in 2021 and Bass had a career high FG %. Haack's net yards per punt was a career low here at 42.7, but it's better than a 1-legged punter and it shouldn't hurt/might help Bass.

"Being critical" isn't the issue here. Most of us are critical at times. Being publicly unrelentingly negative and critical is the issue. One can argue the point as to whether someone being consistently critical/pessimistic/negative in public makes them less of a fan. It's really not my main point here, but I'll just point out that "fan" is short for "fanatic", and like its root word, is supposed to denote a person marked by "excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion", in sports by extreme enthusiasm or devotion to a team. So yeah, at the very root of the definition of fan, someone who is unrelentingly and constantly critical or pessimistic actually may not fit the definition of fan as many understand it. In addition, in a human relationship, someone who claims extreme devotion and love but expresses that with unrelenting criticism, pessimism, and negativity is considered to show toxic or even emotionally abusive relationship behavior. You consider it "flawed logic" to call someone who is overthetop and unrelentingly negative and critical "not a fan" only a unique, personal definition of fan where unstated devotion and support are combined with unrelenting public negativity and criticism. My main point is that one of the claims made by Filthy Beast is that he is objective and credible. Go back and look: do any of those quotes from Twitter support a claim of being objective or credible? 1) believes NFL is fixed - "no way the NFL allows anything but a Chiefs vs Ravens/Texans AFCCG 2) praying the Jaguars win so that the Bills "team and coach will be exposed in the biggest of moments" - how can even a critical, negative fan pray for outcomes negative to his team? 3) don't waste time with PFF crap (one source of supposedly objective performance ratings). the OL has played like *****. Now, league average rush yards per game are 112.7, so in the previous 3 weeks, the Bills generated an average 166 rush YPG which is impossible with a ***** OL...does that sound objective or credible? That FilthyBeast guy is simply not objective or credible, and for you to say "you have no idea whether he's credible or not" and then dismiss evidence to that point, is flawed logic - on your part. As for you: You openly acknowledge that you are extremely critical and think for the worst. I totally respect you as a fan for acknowledging this. You aren't claiming to be objective and credible. That's fair, one of the roots of being a fan(atic) is that one isn't usually objective and credible. Stepping aside from the above point that one can make a logical argument that being extremely and unrelentingly negative and critical may be incompatible with being a fan by some common definitions - I can live with a fan who is negative and critical if they acknowledge it. I do think that you need to look at yourself if you can perceive that you're wearing overly critical and negative blinders and not blame "past trauma as a 50 year Bills fan". Some of my earliest memories in the early to mid '60s are watching the AFL Championship game with my Grandpa. So I've been a fan 59-ish years. We certainly lived together through some very bad Bills times. Grandpa is gone now, he died in 1987 and missed the epic Bills teams of the late 80s/early 90s. And yeah, I have some BBFS (Buffalo Bills Fan Syndrome PTSD). But I don't let it govern me.

Aren't the betting odds currently Bills -2.5, which is basically saying it's a toss-up with a slight edge to the Bills for having home field advantage? Of course that could change during the week when injury reports come out. He appears to feel that the NFL is fixed: During the Miami Week 18 game: Sound like an objective observer, or like a Bills fan, to you?

I thought he said they had 5 guys with OC experience, and now that Dorsey's gone I was trying to figure that out -Aaron Kromer 2013-2014 Chicago -Rob Boras 2015-2016 Rams -Mike Shula 3 different teams between 1996-1999, 2013-2019 and of course Joe Brady am I missing something? Re Steelers bench getting hammered with snowballs, at least we didn't have nonsense about giving the Bills a penalty. In fact I don't recall hearing anything about it during the game. Tomlin must have told them, there's going to be snow in the stands, the fans are going to throw snowballs at you, just deal.

Maybe it had to do with no fans in the stands, but it may have had more to do with the fact that Allen was 2 games out from an AC joint sprain suffered in the Raiders game, and was playing in a linebacker brace. In fact, the Bills moved the ball and scored a TD when Allen insisted on taking it off in the 4th Q, but our defense gave up a 12 play, 6 minute drive that used all our time outs and ended in a FG, putting it back to a 2 score game. Which brings me to what I think might be the real concern. We had Tre Edmunds, but we were playing without Matt Milano, starting AJ Klein at OLB in his place, and starting Josh Norman in place of Levi Wallace. It's really critical what happens on the injury front this week.

Bojorquez is still under contract to the Browns. If a player is a pending FA in 2024 but was under contract in 2023, he is still under contract until the league New Year in March. Practice squad guys are an interesting case, because the ones the team wants are signed to "reserve Futures contracts" which actually don't become effective until the league New Year - but once the PS guys sign them, they are committed to that team and can't negotiate with other teams. Pat O'Donnell was suggested. He is currently a free agent, so if he's in shape and he's interested, that might work. He punted for the Bears in the Windy City for 8 seasons. Then he went to Green Bay. He was released at the end of Training Camp, was on and off the Atlanta Falcons practice squad and roster, and was just released on Dec. 26th. 52 punts averagaing 44.5 yards last season. O'Donnell is about the best suggestion I've heard so far. I like this plan. "No Punt" divisional round playoff for the Bills!

He's under contract to the Cleveland Browns until the league New Year in March

That whole Mitch Morse segment on McAfee is worth a listen. Morse is about 2:09 in. First of all Morse just comes across as such a classy, gentlemanly dude that it knocked McAfee on his ass laughing when he asked him a question about Josh Allen and he says "Oh Hell No ...We've been begging that ***** to slide once in a while". He ends saying "he's sick in the head, because he likes it". It's just a cool interview though, they talk about the Dunne article and the locker room's reaction and what it's like living in Buffalo. He says they had a guy who just had a baby and he got stuck on his way to the hospital Friday when they were going to be discharged, and people got him un-stuck and got him there and then took him home in a front-loader (which took 3 hrs) I wonder who that was? Hardy DNP for personal reasons on Thurs, and your girlfriend or wife having a baby is a reason that guys miss practice.

I mean, this would be sweet if true, but I'm pretty sure Rasul Douglas Twitter is @RasulEra and his Insta is @rd32_era. These accounts are followed by a number of Bills media. So I'm not sure about this rasulxera account. In the Instagram Insta, it identifies as a "FANPAGE FOR rasul douglas". That's not to say it might not be run by a close friend or relative who has inside info, but at this point of the week, with Douglas DNP all 3 practices last week, I don't see how it can be said "Rasul has been cleared". Practing, and how the body reacts to that, is part of the process of giving a guy the thumbs up to play.

Where is this information (Benford having a torn meniscus, Martin being out) coming from?

Where are these "chances" coming from? Right, basically he can make an educated guess based on the mechanics of the injury, but he lacks the specifics (is it a grade 1 or 2 sprain? is there a torn meniscus or is it just a sprain? and if it's torn, where and how badly?) Or maybe the trainers who examine him splinted him and put him on a cart for x-rays because that's what the exam indicated. "low pain tolerance" my Aunt Fanny.

Mason Rudolph on a 1 yr contract, he'll be a FA. Just sayin'.

Pat O'Donnell, good option. The thing about Haack is we cut him for Araiza, then we cut Araiza. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if Haack might have some salt about that. On the other hand, I'm not a football player and if a guy is sitting home and gets offered $46.5k for a few days work with a chance of up to another $388k, I can see where that could appeal.

It's not just that, but there are examples of Allen on film with a 'fake slide'. Like you say, he drops his hips and sort of positions his front foot like he's gonna slide then keeps going. He doesn't take several steps back and forth and slow to a pause while his blockers take position, then continue.

I mean, maybe? But I think they tried it a few times and he just doesn't have the same quickness/speed Not to say that there still shouldn't be ways to use him we're missing on.

Quote from Zerovoltz: "ok...you are betting the Packers win division and a playoff game with Love as starting QB. I am betting that doesn't happen. I'd be willing to make this a little easier. How about Packers with Love make playoffs, you win...Packers and Love don't make playoffs, I win. You good with that?" They made the playoffs, AND won a playoff game so....$$$$$$

So this is an interesting situation. A "futures" contract does not take effect until the first day of the following league year. That's relevant because it doesn't count against the current year cap or 53 man roster limit. But, unlike a practice squad contract, players who have signed a "futures" contract can not negotiate with other teams. https://www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-futures-contract-everything-you-need-to-know/

So what are our options for a punter?